Nations have been made to believe that partisan democracy works for the greatest good of all the people, when this turns out not to be so, democracy loses its effectiveness as a tool of managing people.
Societies have been made to believe that In a democracy, political parties aim to operate governments whose governance trajectory are programmed to run along coordinates that directs to the greatest good of all the people and sections of the society. In a large and profoundly diversified country, for example, the expectation of the democratic process is that, it would, as much as possible, lead towards better national cohesion and unity, through the engineering of a process of overcoming divisiveness, and ironing out of society’s differences; by building bridges of social stability across any waters of differences.
Democracy loses its effectiveness when it transforms into little more than a tool for “state capture” by one region, clan or group over the others. In such instances, majority rule, which democracy supposes to stand for, transforms into minority rule; when narrow circles of cosmopolitan cabals, religious bigots, and tribal and regional irredentist, seize the apparatuses of the state, and begin extracting benefits, and exercising control, like an invasive Covid virus, over other regions, cultures and groups.
Worse of all is when, in a plural, multi-diversified country, a ruling political party tolerates, and overtly condones, such narrow minded partisanship over inclusivity, then any hope of successful nation building, and the overcoming of deep rooted social differences, pervasive in the country, by such a governing party becomes impossible.
This is the basis for the questioning of the efficacy of “party democracy” as a tool for nation building in Nigeria.
Factually, of late, more and more people in Nigeria are awakening to the realization that ‘Democracy’ is not only not working as expected, but is increasingly resembling a failed system. This feeling began gaining prominence from the inception of APC rulership of the country in 2015.
The blatant nepotism on display, from the advent of the rulership of the country by the “unprogressive” All Progressives Congress (uAPC), a platform which tends to patronize regional interest and circles of cabals; disproportionately dishing to them favors, while blind sighting other regions and interest, has deepened divisiveness, and brought to the fore, as never before, the sense of either belongingness or otherness in national discourses. This system of nepotistic state capture, which is being increasingly enthroned by the unprogressive APC, where the minority rule of a small organized group, with strong preferences for its types, and intolerances of others, gains and seizes control of the apparatuses of the state, for their exclusive benefits, and to the detriment of the interest of others, is a system that is a sure harbinger of social disintegration, and ultimately, a destroyer of nation states.
A look at the dominant amalgamative components of the APC shows that, from its very origin, it was never conceived to function as a pan-Nigerian political party. This is because The CPC and AC groups, the main formative pillars of the party, were basically one man led platforms that were entrenched in their regional enclaves where they operated as the defenders of sectional interest. Also, their respective leaders – Mohammadu Buhari, and Bola Tinubu, were huge, larger than life idols, who were dressed by their partisan hero worshipping followers in mythical robes of the reincarnated messiahs of their tribes and regions.
These, great men, as former and serving presidents of our country, have always considered ensuring the preeminence of their tribal and regional enclaves as the raison d’tre of their politics. Hence they painted their political plays in the colors of Tribe, Region and Religion – aka TRR politics. For these leaders, politics was all about ensuring the supremacy of their tribe, region, and religion, thus, they consider other parts of the country as foreign lands to be conquered, and treated other Nigerians from outside their regions as no better than aliens; to be used and lorded over.
With the TRR brand of politics as their template, ensuring national unity is not the priority of the APC brand of governance. This is why the country is increasingly being railroaded along the tracks travelled under the NPC led government of the first republic, when the different regions and tribes of the country operated on the basis of an unhealthy destructive competition, rather than a constructive one. Naturally, in the absence of unity, distrust, dysfunction and chaos reigned. This was precisely what invited the military coup that ended the first republic and which set off the chain of military coups and counter coups that followed; stunting the social and economic progress of the country. It is a proven dangerous and destructive route to travel.
Apart from factions of other political parties, which merely served as add-on battle rams, operationally, the APC consisted of a marriageof inconvenience, contracted between Mohammadu Buhari’s CPC, whose undisguised mission was to return the country to hegemonic rulership of Arewa north; meaning core muslim north , which they grieved, was lost, over the years of the rule of PDP’s southern presidents, Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, and Bola Tinubu’s irredentist AC , whose world view only circumscribed Yoruba regional exceptionalism and no more, and who saw the PDP presidency of Goodluck Jonathan as an untenable rule of some retarded serfs over a exceptional master-race. Both Buhari and Tinubu subtly postured, to their adulating tribesmen, as the metamorphosed incarnations of the great regional leaders of yore, Sardauna Ahmadu Bello, and the sage, Obafemi Awolowo. While Buhari sewed and dressed-up himself in puritanical robes of honesty, a common man loving (talakawa) welfarist, and a champion of northern development – basically, a sardauna 2.0, Tinubu chameleons about as the two-in-one man; the reincarnated Obafemi Awolowo, complete with his trademark round-rim eye-glasses, with a mystical masonic cap, and ‘Emi Lo Kan’ exclusionist sloganeering, as add-ons, and, as Aare MKO Abiola 2.0, alongside his famed wealth.
Unfortunately, the pathetic pretendians are very poor copies of the real idols. While corruption enabler, Buhari, was bereft of the, all-north-inclusive, governance knowhow, of the great Sardauna, Tinubu comes across as totally bereft of both the intellectual and developmental acumen of Awolowo and the nationalistic broadmindedness of Aare Abiola.
With the emergence of APC as the ruling political party from such a marriage of pure-bred pan regional political parties, with people of provincial outlooks and tribal proclivities at its leadership, it is no surprise that a replay of the destructive politics of Tribe, Region, and Religion (TRR ), that brought about the chaotic disunity that doomed the first republic is awakened anew. Sadly, with the APC’s brand of narrow minded politics of exclusionism, we are seeing the heavy hands of the dead past resurrected to rest on, and yet again, pressure the weakened and overburdened frames of our social cohesiveness and national unity.
During the first leg of the government of team CPC/APC, Nigerians were made to suffered the full brunt of the disastrous 8 years of Buhari’s presidency, during which, he openly demonstrated that his own copy of APC was but, Arewa Peoples Congress, and that his core mandate was to rule for the exclusive benefit of his family, personal friends, and a select, recommend of northern elites, to the exclusion of the ordinary northerners and the rest of the country. It was an 8 years during which Buhari and APC demonstrated to all Nigerians the destructive powers of TRR politics; as they inflicted devastating economic pains on Nigerians, sowed the seeds of unprecedented disunity in country, and brought unmanageable social strives to the harvest.
It’s a year plus, since the Buhari’s CPC/APC completing their leg of the team race, and dubiously handed over the baton to their Tinubu’s AC/APC tag team partners. Unfortunately, for most of the country, team Tinubu, sore vexed, and still grieving, from the contemptuous ill treatment served them by Buhari’s CPC/APC, are hell bent on having their pound of flesh, by defining their own APC as Afenifere Peoples Congress – their revenge on Buhari’s group for running APC as Arewa Peoples Congress. Hence, their implied resolve to run their government solely for the exclusive benefit of the Yoruba, sorry, Eko-Yoruba, clan. This is the essence of the “Emi lo kan” slogan. On this mandate they stand. Firm and strong, no shaking.
Over 8 years, Buhari inflicted the country with a brand of unabashed nepotism, state capture, and a permissiveness of corruption, as was never ever imagined to be possible, and which pushed the country near the cliff-top of social and economic disintegration. Sadly, from the appointments being made, the sinecures being handed out, and contract patronages being rewarded, it is becoming clear that president Bola Tinubu is aiming to out-pace Buhari in playing the same destructive style of TRR politics – which demonstratively, devastated the social and economic well-being of Nigerians over the, better be forgotten, 8 years of Buhari’s incompetent and nepotistic mis-governance.
However, there should be no doubts that a repeat of Buhari’s play of nepotistic corruption, and the politics of state capture, as we are seeing being unfurled, by the growing clannish nepotism and the creeping capture of the public treasury by corporatist financiers, if allowed to en-cast and blossom, would surely be the final push that tips the Nigerian democracy project over the cliff top. It is yet night fall, Team Tinubu should better be advised to “cease and desist.”